"The past few months have revealed a number of very large patent transactions and Ocean Tomo has been fortunate to be involved in virtually all of them advising clients on portfolio valuation, quality or risk," reported James E. Malackowski, the firm's Chairman and Chief Executive.

The Ocean Tomo USPC Patent Quality Benchmark Study provides a meaningful benchmark for those studying patent quality among the 430 United States Patent Classes (USPC) as defined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

The study reflects Nanotechnology (class 977) as the number one technology class for patent quality, with the highest current average IPQ® score.

According to Ocean Tomo Managing Director Steve Lee, “It is not surprising that Nanotechnology has the highest patent quality rating (IPQ score) of 126.6 even though it is an emerging field. The quality of this sector reinforces the USPTO's recent addition of Nanotechnology as a designated class. An average IPQ score of 126.6 is equivalent to the top 20% of all U.S. rated patents.”

Ocean Tomo takes care to watch trends in class 705, Financial Services and Related Business Methods, given its own business activity, noting that class 705 is also among the top twenty-five USPC classes ranked by IPQ score in 2011. Class 705 scores have remained relatively constant for the past five years.

According to the Ocean Tomo USPC Patent Quality Benchmark Study, available in full at OceanTomo.com, the top 25 are:

Malackowski adds, “The top 25 technology classes are directionally significant, having an average IPQ above 120 puts each among the top 30% of all rated patents.”

Looking alternatively at market indications of risk, the High-Tech industry leads the Fortune 100 with adverse patent infringement case filings (36%) followed by Retail (19.9%), and Telecom (10.7%). Financial Services, Aerospace, Insurance and Energy fall to the bottom of the list, each with an even larger number of firms than High-Tech but each impacted by less than 5% of patent cases filed.

Ocean Tomo PatentRatings® IPQ scores objectively rate patent assets based on a proven statistical methodology, with a median score being 100. The Ocean Tomo PatentRatings® system is the first market-validated software platform for objectively assessing patent quality, relative value, and competitive trends for patents, patent portfolios, companies, and technology sectors. The Ocean Tomo PatentRatings system uses a patented method of patent quality valuation, (USP 6,556,992 7,657,476 and 7,716,226 ) that is statistically based calculating the relative quality of all patents issued by the USPTO since 1976 using more than 50 independent and objective factors that are correlated to patent value.

1. USPC: United States Patent Classification System, a system for organizing all U.S. patent documents and many other technical documents based on common subject
matter. Classes with patent count below 10 are excluded from this analysis. Based on 423 discrete US patent classes (technologies per USPTO) with average patent count
of approximately 15K per class.
2 . Description: a detailed description of the subject matter that must be in a patent document in order for the document to be properly classified in the USPC system.
3 . Avg IPQ® Score: Average IPQ 2011 issued & in-force US patents within designated USPC group through 6/28/2011. The IPQ Score is the output from Ocean Tomo’s
PatentRatings® system, uses 50 independent and objective factors that are correlated to patent quality, where 100 is a median quality above 100 indicates above average
quality relative to all issued US patents.

Data Source: Ocean Tomo PatentRatings

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All data accessible through OceanTomo.com/ratings was prepared by Ocean Tomo based on proprietary algorithms and other statistical information provided by PatentRatings, LLC. All scores, ratings and ranks are statistical in nature and are based on publicly available data. They are not based on, nor do they consider any legal opinions or other professional opinions, advice or other information (public or otherwise) that may have bearing on the subject matter of the analysis. No direct statistical correlation has been established between IPQ scores and "fair market value," royalty rates, validity, enforceability or infringement and IPQ scores should not be relied upon to prove or establish the existence or probability of such facts. No direct statistical correlation has been established between Relevance scores and patentability or materiality, and Relevance scores should not be relied upon to prove, establish or support any opinion of the materiality or patentability of one patent in view of another. Some of the information and services provided by this website may be covered by one or more of the following U.S. patents: 6,556,992; 7,657,476; 7,716,226; and other patents pending. Copyright 2001-2010 PatentRatings, LLC. Copyright 2011 Ocean Tomo, LLC. All rights reserved.

OCEANTOMO.COM/RATINGS DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY LEGAL ADVICE. NONE OF THE DATA, INFORMATION, ANALYSES OR REPRESENTATIONS THEREOF ACCESSIBLE THROUGH THIS SITE SHOULD BE CONSTRUED OR TAKEN AS LEGAL ADVICE